Former Rep. Louis Stokes, the Man Who Saved the Space Station, Dies At Age 90

MarkWhittington writes: The Associated Press noted the passing of former Rep. Louis Stokes at the age of 90. Since Stokes was an African American Democrat first elected in 1968, most of the accolades touch on his effect on the civil rights struggle and his lifelong fight against racism. However, as George Abbey, former NASA Director of the Johnson Spaceflight Center and current Fellow in Space Policy at the Baker Institute of Rice University pointed out on his Facebook Page, Stokes can be rightly be said to be the man who saved the International Space Station and perhaps human space flight in America.

Comments

He backed the wrong thing

[Anonymous Coward]

He should have backed human life extension instead. This "human spaceflight" (such dramatic language! Oh my!) is just free fall in a tin can in the upper atmosphere.

When I was a kid we drove 600km in a day to get to the summer cottage, that's further away than the ISS and I explored far more than the inside of my parent's station wagon!

Maybe as all the people that grew up with the Space Age start passing on, or like Mitchell, go insane, the human race can focus on the future instead of hugging its navel while clinging to the naive 1960s space fantasies.

One hopes.